Conspiracy Theory (1997)

reviewed by
Scott Renshaw


CONSPIRACY THEORY
(Warner Bros.)
Starring:  Mel Gibson, Julia Roberts, Patrick Stewart.
Screenplay:  Brian Helgeland.
Producers:  Joel Silver and Richard Donner.
Director:  Richard Donner.
MPAA Rating:  R (violence, profanity)
Running Time:  135 minutes.
Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.

In Richard Donner's CONSPIRACY THEORY, Mel Gibson finds himself with a classic action-comedy premise on his hands. Gibson stars as Jerry Fletcher, a Manhattan cab driver whose hobbies include stalking an attractive Justice Department prosecutor named Alice Sutton (Julia Roberts), harboring paranoid delusions about anything and everything, and committing the aforementioned paranoid delusions to a monthly newsletter called "Conspiracy Theory." He's just another crackpot in a city full of crackpots, until a mysterious doctor (Patrick Stewart) kidnaps him and wants to know "who else knows what you know." He manages to escape, realizing that one of his half-baked theories may actually be true...only he has no idea which one it might be.

Given a classic action-comedy premise, Gibson makes what would seem to be a rational acting choice: he gives a classic action-comedy performance. He informs his captive fares of the menaces of fluoridated water and the new 100 dollar bill. He wanders around in a wool cap muttering paranoid non-sequiturs like Popeye after an "X-Files" bender. He knocks a Fed over the head, then asks the prone G-Man, "Are you faking?" For about half the film, Gibson is an oddball delight.

What a waste. By all evidence, no one besides Gibson involved in CONSPIRACY THEORY realized that it was an action-comedy. For some inexplicable reason, Donner and screenwriter Brian Helgeland decide that CONSPIRACY THEORY is a psychological thriller. Exit slick, simple plot, enter a muddle of dark experiments and indecipherable connections between characters who never even appear in the film. Exit Alice Sutton the sane foil to nutty Jerry, enter Alice Sutton the haunted woman with a wounded psyche of her own in need of nursing back to health. And exit Jerry the entertaining crackpot, enter Jerry the tragic basket case who clings to copies of "The Catcher in the Rye" as though they were life preservers.

The latter choice is ill-advised bordering on inexcusable. Like the professional that he is, Gibson sobs dutifully through the scenes of Jerry at the end of his tether, spewing forth exposition between squints and grimaces, but it's clear he'd much rather be goofy than grandiose. It's easy to laugh at Jerry when Gibson is playing him for laughs, because there's no sense that he's genuinely mentally ill; he's just a man who thinks he knows something who becomes a man who knew too much. When the script yanks him into the realm of the deeply disturbed, it yanks the viewers' feet right out from under them. Every bit of fun Jerry provides suddenly becomes vaguely tainted. You start to feel as though you really should be feeling sorry for him instead of laughing at him.

That fun is desperately missed through much of CONSPIRACY THEORY, because it turns into a very long sit. As the conspiracies pile up and the chases become a blur over two hours and fifteen minutes, Gibson's sharp line readings act like electrical paddles to the film's heart. After four previous films together, you'd think that Gibson and Donner could find themselves on the same page. No such luck. CONSPIRACY THEORY is the big action-comedy that wasn't, buoyed by the common sense of a star who realizes when to ignore the director and give the people what they want.

     On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 shallow conspiracies:  5.

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